Mumbai: Metropolis Healthcare Ltd, one of India’s leading and renowned diagnostic company, has won the India CSR award for “Too Shy To Ask” App, a dedicated gender education and awareness application targeted towards teenagers and their parents. The project is executed by WE Foundation, a registered NGO working in the area of Adolescent and Reproductive Health and Women’s Empowerment.
The application entails an information center that covers topics such as substance abuse, gender violence, gender equity, adolescence, and reproductive sexual health, mental health, safe use of social media, legal rights, etc. One can anonymously post questions without having the feeling of being judged. To add to that, it also has a parent’s corner that aims at encouraging parents to reach out and have open communication with their children.
The experts on the app have answered over 20,000 queries to date on a wide array of topics such as gender equality, pregnancy, abortions, masturbation, wet dreams among others. The app has over 30,000 installs so far on both android and iOS versions and also has an in-built word game to improve understanding of the app content in an engaging and interactive manner. The app provides information in English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, and Tamil.
Sharing her views on the same, Ameera Shah, Promoter & Managing Director of Metropolis Healthcare Ltd. said, “We initiated the project keeping in mind the need to provide a dedicated safe space for adolescents to discuss their queries on reproductive and sexual health. There is an immediate need to come out of the conservative mindset and indulge in two-way communication with the youth. We are elated that our initiative has been recognized at the CSR Impact Awards. We will continue to work in this space to abolish the taboo on sex education in India.”
Dr. Duru Shah, a renowned obstetrician and gynecologist and also the Head of WE Foundation said “As an NGO that continually strives to empower girls with education and skills to enable them to become independent, Too Shy To Ask is an initiative that aligns with our aim. Since the inception of the project, we have reached out to the youth in the underprivileged sections of society and enrich their lives with knowledge, health, and self-sufficiency. Through this project, we hope to create awareness on this sensitive issue to many more parents and children, because adolescents are too shy to ask and parents are too shy to talk.
